I'm a bit previous with the orange sauce here as the ducklings are only 5 days old! but I've not raised ducks before - what is a good age to kill them for dinner? and is there a recommended slaughter method? I broomshank chickens.

Although this is the first year I have kept my own ducks, I have helped a friend - we broom-shanked. I find it more unpleasant than chickens as they seem to take longer to go unconscious. I think you are supposed to do it before the adult feathers come in.

There is no hard and fast rules when it comes to ducks, as there can be many verables that can affect the best time to kill, i.e. temperture, weather, protein level in feed. As Imquackers has stated 6-8 weeks is good if you want a small commercial style duck, but if you like a proper real TASTY duck then leave them to about 16 to 18 weeks, at this age most commercial white ducks will dress out around the 10lb mark and be realy tasty, the trick with ducks is to make damn sure that the ducks are in full feather and have no pin feathers, this can be done holding the duck and pushing the feathers backwards and looking under the feathers for feather pins, the best places to check are the rump and tail base, under the wings on the body and the tops of the wings these are the last places to come into feather, if your ducks are in pin feather leave them till they have finished the moult, as if you kill before they have finished there a nightmare to pluck.